19th Silchar Book Fair had, till now, failed to generate enthusiasm amongst the book-lovers of Silchar, a town known for its admiration for knowledge

SILCHAR, Nov 18: Preponement of the 19th Silchar Book Fair had, till now, failed to generate enthusiasm amongst the book-lovers of Silchar, a town known for its admiration for knowledge. Book-sellers squarely blamed the timing of the fair as they argued that firstly it was examination time and students could not visit the fair; secondly, just after the festive season, guardians, too, found it a bit tough to spare bucks for books at this moment. In previous years, Silchar Book Fair used to be held in the month of December, when the school examination was over. But this year, the organizers preponed it in November, for reasons best known to them. The result was, as expected, disastrous, as stalls wore a deserted look. “We have been participating in this fair since its inception, but never was the selling so poor”, said Shoban Mahapatra of Calcutta’s famed publisher Dev Sahitya Kutir. He said, this year selling was one-fourth in comparison to the previous years. Some book-sellers alleged that there was no proper publicity by the organizers. On the other hand, Paritosh Paul Chowdhury, general secretary of the Book Fair Committee claimed that they preponed the fair for the sake of the book-sellers so that they could attend other fairs.
Last year, the book fair jointly organized by National Book Trust and Silchar unit of Barak Upatyaka Banga Sahitya O Sanskritik Sammelon was a huge success. Whether this had forced the Silchar Book Fair Committee to prepone its event? Paul Chowdhury outrightly rejected the hypothesis, arguing that no other book fair had been announced till now. (SentinelAssam)